Many studies aim to assess the interest of free software applied to the field of education.
Indeed, free software can provide well-adapted solutions, in particular because:
- the world of free software is very responsive.
- free software accommodates heterogeneous computer parks.
- free software is more and more mature and numerous.
- free software is often free.
- free software can be adapted to the specific needs of schools.
The motivations for adopting free software in schools are similar to those of governments, namely:
- economic benefits
- sharing and collaboration
- adaptation according to needs (for example, according to the level of the students)
- very advantageous for proposing academic projects. Indeed, it is possible to use snippets of code or existing libraries, modify them, study them and then integrate them into student work.
Organizations such as Schoolforge , Linuxined or Education.free promote free software and manuals and course notes available. The Thot site deals with education and the world of free software. This site offers many pointers to the most relevant studies.
Likewise, the Linux France site has a section specially dedicated to teaching-related projects .
Here is an overview of the different initiatives to adopt free software in education.
Initiatives in Quebec
Here are the various school boards and Quebec universities that are showing interest in free software.
The site of the Quebec school telematics network offers an article which summarizes the use of free software in the Quebec school network.
The Baie-James School Board, with the support of the Quebec Ministry of Education, conducted a study entitled: “Linux at school: context and implementation conditions. Do we all have to re-evaluate our computer systems to switch to Linux? “.
The Pointe de l’Île School Board, through the RECIT site (Network for the Development of Skills through the Integration of Technologies) offers an evaluation section for free and open-source software . Several categories of applications are presented, including office automation, drawing and image editing, 3D modeling, FTP transfer, web pages, programming, mathematics.
The University of Sherbrooke hosts the GULUS , the Linux Users Group of the University of Sherbrooke. Also within the University of Sherbrooke, the site of the Linux group of the ENERGIE project (Innovative Team of Computer and Electrical Engineering Students) offers a tutorial section .
The University of Sherbrooke very recently launched a Linux-type operating system adapted to Quebec. In his article of June 3, 2003 on this subject, André Laroche (La Tribune) considers ÉduLinux as “the first true distribution adapted to the linguistic context of Quebec and an important milestone in the recognition of free software in Quebec”. Several versions of this operating system are available, one of which can be downloaded free of charge from www.edulinux.org .
UQAM has a group of free software users, UQAM libre .
Attached to the university campus of Lévis, Lévinux , the Virtual Education Laboratory’s mission is to “promote free software in schools and communities in order to contribute to the emergence of a virtual community based on the sharing of knowledge. knowledge and life experiences. “
In 2000, the Philippe-Labarre school, as well as the Saint-Justin and Armand-Lavergne schools in the Tétreaultville district, participated in a pilot project that aimed to use Linux and thin client stations. On December 14, 2000, the Radio-Canada program, Branché, was also devoted to free software and this initiative. The company iNsu, which is now called iNdev, was involved in this pilot project ( indev.insu.com/indiskless/indiskless.html ). A Terminal-X kit specially designed for schools has been developed.
LinuxÉdu-Québec is dedicated to free software in education. This site brings together education stakeholders who develop tools and guides to help Quebec schools integrate ICT into student learning. LinuxÉdu-Québec has published a series of three articles available on the site intended for free software and hosted by the MRCI: “Why free software in education? “This series of articles deals in particular with the philosophical side of the choice of Linux and free software in education.
Quebec Science magazine, in its October 1998 issue, also looked at this subject in its article “How to intelligently computerize schools”.
Initiatives in Canada and the United States
As for Canadian initiatives, we can mention CanOpener, which aims to bring together information that deals with free software applied to education and research. This site is also interested in initiatives taking place in the United States.